Tom Kuczmarski President & Founder, Kuczmarski Innovation; Co-founder, Chicago Innovation Awards

Posted on December 8, 2015December 8, 2015

Thomas D. Kuczmarski, president and founder of Kuczmarski Innovation, is a nationally recognized expert in the innovation of new products and services.

Over the course of his career he has helped hundreds of clients, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations, learn to systematically unlock the value of innovation. Mr. Kuczmarski teaches product and service innovation at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management where he is Senior Lecturer and Visiting Scholar in the Center for Innovation and Technology. For more than three decades, his executive education courses at the Kellogg School have attracted students from around the world.

Mr. Kuczmarski is also founder, along with journalist Dan Miller, of the Chicago Innovation Awards, which annually celebrates, educates, and connects innovators in the Chicago region. The awards are endorsed by every major business association in the Chicago region and showcase the creative spirit of America’s heartland. In 2013, the Awards expanded to include a new venture, The Innovators Connection, designed to help expand the local economy by creating business connections among the region’s innovators, large and small.

Mr. Kuczmarski is the author of six books on innovation and leadership. Innovating Chicago Style: How Local Innovators are Building the National Economy (Book Ends Publishing), written with Dan Miller and Luke Tanen and published in 2012, profiles the first decade of winners of the Chicago Innovation Awards and the lessons of innovation that they reveal. Apples are Square: Thinking Differently about Leadership (Kaplan), co-authored with Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski and published in 2007, explores the qualities of the ideal leader and how to build those qualities into one’s own career. Innovating the Corporation (NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group) reveals the seven steps for achieving growth through innovation. Managing New Products (Book Ends Publishing), now in its third edition, is endorsed by the American Marketing Association and widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive treatises on the development of new products. Values-Based Leadership: Rebuilding Employee Commitment, Productivity and Performance (Prentice-Hall) was also co-authored with Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski. His book Innovation was co-published by NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group and the American Marketing Association.

He is extensively published and cited on radio, television, and in national periodicals including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Newsweek, Bloomberg Business Week, The Today Show, Planning Review, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, Marketing News, Advertising Age, Crain’s Chicago Business, Business Marketing, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, and many more. He has a chapter published on new products and services in the Marketing Encyclopedia, a publication of the American Marketing Association, and serves on the editorial review boards for The Journal of Product Innovation Management and The Journal of Consumer Marketing. In addition, Mr. Kuczmarski is a highly regarded speaker on innovation management and leadership, and lectures nationally and internationally to a broad range of corporations and associations. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and an appointed member of the Illinois Innovation Council.

Before founding Kuczmarski Innovation, he was a Principal at Booz · Allen & Hamilton. While there, Mr. Kuczmarski assisted more than 100 U.S. consumer and industrial goods companies in the areas of marketing, new product development, strategic business analysis and organizational planning. In addition, he led the firm’s in-depth research of the best practices employed by more than 700 U.S. firms in their new product management processes. His prior experience as a brand manager at Quaker Oats Company also provided a solid and broad-based foundation unique to his consulting specialty.

He earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University’s Graduate School of International Affairs, where he was named an International Fellow of the University. He received a B.A. in French from the College of the Holy Cross.

Kuczmarski Innovation Twitter LinkedIn Chicago Innovation Awards

Atlanta Electric Car Company with Diane Meyer and Paul Jones

Posted on December 2, 2015

Podcast: Download

VINTAGE BEAUTY +
ELECTRIC EFFICIENCY

Atlanta Electric Car Company makes any car affordable and climate-friendly. We convert gas guzzlers into charge-ready vehicles with the look, luxury and speed you want at low cost to you and the environment.

Diane Meyer/Atlanta Electric Car Company
CEO & Founder

I am eager to share our business in converting vintage cars to electric and restoring them. Every vintage car has a story – but they need a lot of maintenance to keep running, so let’s turn them to electric and show them off. We started almost a year ago and have opened a second location on Martha’s Vineyard with Clarence “Tripp” Barnes the 3rd. It’s been an incredible journey to create and launch this company, people love it and we have a segment airing on CNN about the “little guys” trying to effect climate change. It’s simple to convert your car, but it’s more than that, convert fleets, trucks, your lawnmower, etc.

Paul Jones/ Atlanta Electric Car Company
Founder

www.atlantaelectriccarcompany.com Twitter Facebook

LET’S TALK!

Considering conversion or have a few questions? Drop us a line!

CONTACT

Justin Roff-Marsh Author of “The Machine” and President of Ballistix

Posted on December 1, 2015

Podcast: Download

In The Machine, Justin Roff-Marsh shows readers how to follow the intrepid executives on three continents who have implemented his ideas over the last 15 years, building ridiculously efficient sales functions–and market-dominating enterprises–as a consequence.

Justin Roff-Marsh/Ballistix
President

Justin Roff-Marsh is the founder and President of Ballistix. He is also considered by many as the thought leader in Sales Process Engineering, a radical new approach to the management of the sales function. Justin is also author of the about-to-be-released book on Sales Process Engineering, The Machine and editor of the popular Sales Process Engineering blog read by thousands of people the world over.
Over the past decade, Justin has presented Sales Process Engineering at events to tens of thousands of executives the world over. He has been guest speaker at scores of industry events, conferences and association meetings. He has facilitated Solution Design Workshops to hundreds of companies in scores of Industries throughout North America and Australia.

Justin’s views are rarely comforting and often controversial. If you are looking for sales training or more of the warm and fuzzy relationship-building workshops that have been driving mediocrity since the 1990s, don’t speak to this guy. If you want to be affirmed that the approach you are taking now is eventually going to deliver the sales results you’ve been hoping for, you won’t get it from Justin either.

If you want a provocative thought-leader who is going to change the way you look at your business, while also giving you a proven strategy to scale your business and grow your revenue, then is definitely the guy for you.

Twitter Facebook The Machine

Exclusive Interview with Santa Rick

Posted on November 30, 2015

Podcast: Download

Santa Rick pays a special visit to the Business RadioX Excutive studio and talks to Ryan “Redhawk” McPherson of Atlanta Business Radio and tells his Christmas message of Joy and Happiness. With sparkling blue eyes, rosy cheeks and a jolly personality, Santa Rick is the embodiment of the true “Spirit of Santa”.

Santa Rick loves his BRX mug

Atlanta’s premier Santa for private parties and corporate events, Santa Rick is a professional Real Bearded Santa, who has been perfecting his persona for decades.

He truly believes that “the world belongs to the children” and he loves to spread happiness and good cheer to people of all ages. His enthusiasm for the magic and wonder of the Christmas season is infectious and will leave children and adults alike believing that they have just spent time with the real Santa.

Santa Rick is a graduate of the International University of Santa Claus, the world’s largest Santa school, and is a member of several prestigious Santa organizations including the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas and the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas. He was recently a featured Santa on a Dreamworks set in a 2-story, 5-room Santa house with a 4-D sleigh ride to the Northpole. He was also a ﬁnalist for an upcoming Santa reality show to air Fall of 2015. He has appeared on BizLynks.TV and been featured in several newspaper articles. His beard is registered with the National
Beard Registry.

When he is not at the North Pole, Santa Rick enjoys gardening, singing, metal detecting on the beach, and volunteering. He has volunteered for several organizations in the metro Atlanta area, including:

Big Brothers of America, where for the past 41 years he has been an active “Big Brother” to his “Little Brother”, making them one of the longest standing Big Brother/Little Brother relationships in the organization.
Boy Scouts of America
Cub Scouts of America
DeKalb County Judicial Panel Review Program for DeKalb County Juvenile Courts
Georgia Aquarium
Georgia Supreme Court Commission for Children, Family, and Marriage
United Cerebral Palsy

Santa Rick would love to work with you to fulﬁll your holiday needs and wishes. Please contact him to make your holiday experience unforgettable and make your Christmas event the best ever!